Hirota Glass 廣田硝子

Who is Hirota Glass?

Hirota Glass traces back to 1899, when founder Kinta Hirota began selling Tokyo glass tableware as a wholesale business. Its own history page tracks what came after in specific steps: a factory built in 1915 to manufacture drinking glasses, in what was then Honjo Ward.

What did the house survive?

The Great Kanto Earthquake destroyed that factory completely in 1923. Eijiro Hirota, the second generation, rebuilt the business as "Hirota Shoten" in 1928. Tokyo air raids damaged the works again in the mid-1940s before it reopened, and the company incorporated formally as Hirota Glass Co., Ltd. in 1950. Two more milestones sit later on the same history page: a logistics centre built in Tsubame, Niigata, in 1985, and the Sumida Edo Kiriko Museum, opened in 2004 as a hands-on space for visitors to see the cutting itself, followed by the Sumida Wa-Glass Museum in 2017.

What does Hirota make today?

The house works in two families of glass rather than one: Edo Kiriko, cut into a colour skin over clear crystal, and mouth-blown glass finished plain or lightly patterned, the technique its own site credits to blending "European traditional glassmaking technique and Japanese artistry." Both lines are still made by hand today, alongside reproductions of the house's own Taisho-era designs.

What do we carry from Hirota?

What we have on hand runs across both of the house's lines. There are Edo Kiriko futachoko lidded cups cut in the ichimatsu pattern, plus sake sets in the same technique. The mouth-blown side covers a Flower Bud cup series in four patterns, a Sori Yanagi-designed wine glass, sakura-shaped glass plates, a large Fubuki serving bowl, cracked-finish Karai cups, gold-leaf sake cups and a reproduction Taisho Romantic cup line, plus a set of glass chopsticks. Browse the Kiriko collection to see Hirota's cut-glass pieces alongside our other kiriko houses, since what is on the shelf shifts as pieces sell through.

How do you look after it?

Wash Hirota glass by hand in lukewarm water with a mild detergent, never in the dishwasher, the same routine as any cut or mouth-blown glass piece we carry. Our cut-glass care guide has the full routine, and our Edo Kiriko guide explains the shippo and ichimatsu patterns cut into the futachoko range.